1. Field
The invention is in the field of archery arrows, nocks, and drawing and release devices for archery bows.
2. State of the Art
Current normal practice in preparation or fletching of archery arrows is to glue vanes, usually of flexible plastic, but still in some instances of feather, to the rearward portion of an arrow shaft, now generally made of aluminum or carbon fiber composite material. A nock is secured to the arrow shaft at its rearward end behind the vanes, and an arrowhead is secured to the arrow shaft at its forward end. When a vane becomes damaged, the damaged vane can be removed and a new vane glued to the arrow shaft. When fletching an arrow (putting the vanes on the arrow) it is important that the vanes be properly spaced and aligned. This spacing and alignment is difficult for individual archers, without specialized equipment, to maintain. Thus, when a vane on an arrow becomes damaged, many archers will replace the complete arrow rather than attempting to replace one or more vanes.
Vane assemblies have been marketed, particularly for wooden childrens' archery arrows, and recently for aluminum crossbow arrows, wherein the vanes are molded on a plastic sleeve as a complete unit which slides onto and fits over the rearward end portion of an arrow shaft. Some of these assemblies merely include the vanes and a nock is separately inserted into or is otherwise formed at the rearward end of the arrow shaft. Other of these assemblies include an integrally molded nock so when the sleeve is slid over the rearward end portion of an arrow shaft, the end of the shaft remains in the assembly and the assembly forms the nock for the end of the arrow. With such assemblies, however, it has apparently been considered important to maintain the integrity of the arrow shaft itself through the length of the vanes since all such assemblies known to the inventors have a sleeve which fits over the arrow shaft for substantially the entire length of the vanes, i.e., the rearward end of the arrow shaft is received in the assembly and extends through the assembly for the length of the vanes. Applicants are not aware of any such assemblies which extend behind the arrow shaft and effectively extend the length of the arrow by the length of the vanes.
Archery releases known to the inventors all have some type of gripping or holding means that hold the bow string as it is being drawn. Where the bow string is held in a location below the nock of the arrow, the string will be angled in the arrow nock and upon release of the string, the angle will exert at least a slight initial downward pressure on the end of the arrow. Several of the newer string releases, see for example U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,508, grip the string both above and below the arrow nock in an attempt to avoid this problem.